Ted Cruz chimes in with an assault on “New York Values”, going into a spot against Donald Trump that was foreseeable last summer.

The line comes out of some weird amalgam of something of a deeply submerged anti- semitism*, some anti-cosmopolitanism — or the vision of the multi-ethnic melting pot **, parochial — rural boosterism, and making hay off of an image of New York cemented off of the era of 1970s urban decay.

(*In the same way “San Francisco values” is all about the gays.)
(** Attacking Donald Trump as a false prophet to that downwardly mobile uneducated white working class George Wallace-ite support he’s been attracting.)

Fascinating enough, “The Donald” has a trump card to Ted Cruz.  Sarah Palin is endorsing Donald Trump.  Sarah Palin, the last seemingly overt practitioner on the national scale of this gambit Cruz is playing… seen when Palin quoted Westbrook Pegler.

Of course, now Bob Dole throws his lot behind Trump— or at the very least Dole is coming out in favor of Trump as the lesser veil than Cruz.  And here we see Dole’s view that it’s Trump or Cruz… and to that you can say… Wow.

I saw in the National Review a sarcastic quip about the New York Times’s front page editorial urging gun control.  The quip was that the last time they did this (and with the mocking commentary that this means this is the most pressing issue in 95 years) — it was to broadside against the Republican nomination of Warren Harding.  And so the editorial is fated to be ignored by the public, just as Warren Harding prepared for a landslide victory in November.

Leaving aside whether the NYT editorial is right on the issue, this is an odd comment for comparison… Or… Was the New York Times not right to warn America about the perils and what it represents to nominate and elect Warren Harding?  History, as always, shall be the judge.

Clinton and Sanders Set For High-Stakes Democratic Debate.

Oh, and also O’Malley.

Scheduled, as it is, in the middle of a three day weekend.  Just as the last one was scheduled sometime during Holiday Season.  The vision of the DNC head, to hold as few debates as possible that will not be seen.

Still, an interesting debate thingy has emerged in the Democratic race.  Hillary Clinton proffers to the left of Sanders by pointing out the inherent weakness of federalism.

Clinton also said Sanders’ single-payer healthcare proposal would likely require a tax hike on the middle class, saying in an interview this week with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that Sanders’ single-payer plan would “dismantle healthcare as we know it.”

AND…

Hillary Clinton says Bernie Sanders’ Medicare-for-all plan is too expensive and too reliant on the cooperation of Republican governors.

And so we’re situational federalists.  In the current political climate, the Republicans have a pretty good lock on the local level down ballot with the “Generic Democrat” (that’s Hillary Clinton) favored for the top spot of Presidency.  Through the Bush administration, there was room for state level governors of Democratic red-state stripe, and at that point Democrats and liberals edged into support of taking policy down to the state level — now a vote for a Democratic governor in Kentucky (to use the most depressing result of this last year) is at some level a vote for Obama, so… the game goes aflutter.

As for the other issue Hillary Clinton can claim left-wing ground on Obama — guns — well… that’s only emerged as a litmus after… oh, Sandy Hook?

Obama’s State of the Union speech decoded:

The State of the Union.  Has Donald Trump within earshot of the presidency.

Nikki Haley’s Republican Response to the State of the Union decoded:

The State of the Union.  Has Donald Trump within earshot of the Republican Nomination.

Sometimes I wonder if things wouldn’t be better if we can just go ahead and let them throw the name in, as opposed to referencing the dreaded “some” or the “those” that are “there”.

Now, I want to hear the Natural Law Response.

I’m watching the game — Seahawks versus Vikiings — with two others.  A man and a woman.  The man holds tightly to this sports watching ideology steeped at the axis of Vegas and Sabermetrics — hewing to statistics and probabilities.  He insists that the Seahawks oughta go for it on a fourth down at about mid-field.  My statement “I’d agree if the ball were any further down” — is met with a curt dismissal — he has the numbers on his side.  And who can argue with the numbers?  It’s all calculated out to a tee.

We bring out the obvious — the last call in last year’s Superbowl.  No, it doesn’t take Vegas sharpshooters to call that a bad call.  Statistically speaking.

We naturally all explode in a burst of cheers when Russell Wilson turns a botched snap and what should be a 20 yard loss into a 30 yard pass, setting up a touchdown.  Our Vegas Sabermetrics guy says “Now.  See.  That’s a champion.”  The woman here points out the obvious — had he botched that 20 yard loss even further, we’d be crying out a “WTF?”, Wilson is a basket-case.  I think I can come up some retro-active statistical play idea that hinges on a couple things … IF the ball can be picked up cleanly, and IF the quarterback can scramble into some safety, there will be a man open — in all probability — because the entire defense is right now converging on him.  So it’s good bit of high risk; high reward.  She next pulls out the play at the end of last year’s Superbowl, that had that been successful, we’d be claiming it as a good play.  “Still would be a bad move,” I say as Sabermetric guy nods sagely.

As the game comes to the end, the Vegas — Sabermetric Man craftily switches sides — his fandom of statistical probabilities out-weighing his fandom of Team Seahawks.  Fair enough, makes as much sense as anything else in spectator sports and the identity politics that it represents.  He says the Seahawks now don’t deserve to win; they deserve to lose — played too conservatively in the last series of downs.  So he’s laughing as we’re fretting as the Vikings easily go down the field and set up an easy chip-shot of a field goal — a goal any kicker in the NFL should be able to hit blind-folded, and with one leg missing.  I’m musing about the probabilities of Wilson getting the ball down the field in the 20 seconds that will follow this kick.  The other viewer sighs, “Hey.  Maybe he’ll miss it.”

Mr. Vegas Sabermetrics Man laughs.  “Yeah.  Right.  What are the odds?”

Is this a joke?

Members of a group from outside Oregon arrived on Friday at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to “secure a perimeter” around the compound and prevent “a Waco-style situation.”
The arrival of the “3% of Idaho” was the latest development in the situation outside Burns, where an armed occupation of the refuge by an Ammon Bundy-led militant group entered its seventh day.
“They just keep an eye on everything that is going on” to make sure “nothing stupid happens,” Bundy said Friday afternoon outside refuge headquarters.

The 3 percent of Idaho?  Is that, like, the identifier of the Idaho Democratic Party?

Curtiss and Chris McIntire, another group spokesman, called the situation a “double-edged sword” – the perimeter is meant to protect the occupiers from an outside attack but also to protect the Harney County community from those who arrive in solidarity with Bundy’s cause but may be prone to violence, they said. The Idaho group is here to keep the situation “peaceful” and reassure the community that it isn’t in danger, they said.

But what of the name?  Actually it segues to the, perhaps, elitist nature of right wing versus left-wing politics.  When the “left” marched out in protest, they declared themselves the “99 percent”, or perhaps “with the 99 percent“.  (The South Park spoof on the whole Occupy ends with

The protests eventually fall apart, as the 99% and 83% are replaced by various smaller percentages, according to a reporter, who then rushes away when he is informed that protestors are now “occupying” a Macaroni Grill.

which is kind of where we get to this weird “3 percent” thing).

So, here it’s the idea that, oh, something like only 3 percent of the people care about liberty, and are willing to take a stand for liberty, before it is too late.

Things get more complicated in that the “3 percent of Idaho” uses roman numerals in their logo, so it looks like they’re claiming to be the 111 percent of Idaho.

We begin with Webster Tarpley, whose admirers are circulating the “bottom half of the Internet” to let everyone know Webster Tarpley has exposed ISIS as a CIA plot to de-stabilize the Mid-East…

Have a look at what Dr.Webster Tarpley has to say oon the creation of ISIS that it is an American secret army created to de-stabilise the middle east. Dr.Tarpley is an American historian and broadcaster with his own radio show.

And, we have an intriguing conspiratorial battling line amongst erst-while friends– forces out on twitter…  differing opinions regarding the stand-off in Burns, Oregon.  See here Webster Tarpley’s twitter feed.

#Bundy fanatics join Oregon armed gangs to privatize lands owned by American people-Will #Trump or #Cruz back them? http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2016/01/drama_in_burns_ends_with_quiet.html#incart_big-photo …

#Fascism is armed gangs of storm troopers-Are #OR militia the right wing of #Trump & #Cruz? If not let #GOP condemn them-#OregonUnderAttack

Kid-glove treatment for #Mormon #BundyMilitia in #Burns #OR exposes them as pampered #FalseFlag darlings of #FBI #Yallqaeda #YokelHaram

And on this… It’s Webster Tarpley versus Kurt Nimmo!

Kurt Nimmo expounds his view with this cutesy image — showing what it is that is going on.  Yes.  Andrew Jackson and George Washington weep, man on the bench represents either Bundy or the Oregon rancher or the Average American, and Obama looks on, Consitution under foot.

As for the big “gatekeeper” con, the Alex Jones universe (which has been plugging about Trump with a fervor almost akin to how they used to plug along with Ron Paul) — always watching what the right wing (and I guess we’re calling Trump right wing?) avatars are saying to keep the rowdies in line.  Trump: he’d tell #Bundy “You gotta get out.” Feds have zero authority over the states. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/donald-trump-solve-oregon-militia …

It has been a while since Webster Tarpley has made the rounds on the Alex Jones Show.  Is there fricture as Tarpley moves out to the wacko left while Jones and Nimmo stick to the wacko right?  Who can say?

………… —- Odd little tidbit, from Webster Tarpley’s Barack H Obama: The UnAuthorized Biography, published 2008… page 413

Even before Obama’s “bittergate” remarks in San Francisco, the acerbic Spengler of Asia Times had diagnosed Obama’s method of profiling and manipulating the American people…

STORY NUMBER TWO
Huh?  Oh, footnote in what appears to be a footnote of a story that mostly calls into question further concerns for when information online needs to be private.

Ac­cord­ing to cam­paign spend­ing data, Na­tion Build­er’s biggest cli­ents in the cur­rent elec­tion cycle are the Mas­sachu­setts Re­pub­lic­an Party, Rep. Dav­id McKin­ley of West Vir­gin­ia, and the Lyn­don La­Rouche Polit­ic­al Ac­tion Com­mit­tee—which is as­so­ci­ated with the con­tro­ver­sial con­spir­acy the­or­ist and per­en­ni­al pres­id­en­tial can­did­ate.

And ballot decisions come to the fore, one of the foot-notey legacies of the Lyndon Larouche Movement’s electoral campaigns.  How Lyndon Larouche is benefiting the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.

Husted cited a 1981 law barring candidates who are affiliated with a political party from appearing without partisan affiliation on a statewide ballot. Trump officially filed for Ohio’s Republican primary on Friday, seemingly triggering the law. However, as Ballot Access News pointed out in the wake of Husted’s announcement, the law Husted is citing in order to keep Trump off the ballot has been enforced selectively at best. For starters, white nationalist and all around crazy person Lyndon LaRouche appeared on the state’s general election ballot in 1984, 1988 and 1992 as an independent despite having filed for the Democratic nomination all three of those years.
In other words, Ohio is planning on being less accommodating to Trump, who only walks up to the line of being a fascist white supremacist, than it was for one of our nation’s most well-known fascist white supremacists. If Trump is looking for evidence that he’s being treated unfairly, there it is.

STORY NUMBER THREE
Oh, the horrors of being a congressional staff, having to deal with this guy 23 times…

Q: Mr. LaRouche, this is B— from Fair Oaks, Sacramento County, and I was interested in the 25th Amendment and a rapid removal of President Obama, as President Nixon was removed, and I’ve seen it can happen in one day, coming from the top people from the Democratic Party in this case, as it was done in the case of President Nixon. How can this come about and the right people not make the excuses and denials as I come across?
Where we live, in our district, the 7th Congressional District, Congressman Dr. Ami Bera answers like a lawyer, just picks stuff apart and denies there ever was treason or any reason for Obama to be impeached or removed by the 25th Amendment,—that’s just a field caseworker for this guy. I’ve gone 23 times to that office, and they’re just liars, and deniers; it’s useless. So I’d like to know, how could it happen?

Larouche answers?

I’ve also seen my dearest friends assassinated in various parts of the planet; and those assassinations tell me exactly what the problem is. Why were they killed? Like Indira Gandhi; why was she murdered by the British? Why? Because she was a genius; and genius is what these guys specify as a target for killing. Indira Gandhi; that’s not the only case. There are many cases of leading figures who were assassinated; again and again. De Gaulle was not assassinated; but he was virtually assassinated before he died. Because the fascist party, which is called the Socialist Party in France, is the force of evil. Obama is the force of evil.
And therefore, the question is, if you’ve got an option, you better do something about it quickly; because the forces of Satan will gather quickly, exterminate you, and then go back to business as they were doing it before. Unity; the force of unity, is the secret of humanity.

Story Number Four
Looky see what’s a’happening on Wikipedia.

Deleted Wikipedia edit for “Larouche Movement”:  Even more so, they have a group of “Fundraisers, see: Telemarketers” that will call you and yell and swear at you if you don’t buy into or wholeheartedly glom onto all of their tinfoil hat conspiracy theories.

For six months, LaRouche worked with American Healyite leader [[Tim Wohlforth]], who later wrote that LaRouche had a “gargantuan ego,” and “a marvelous ability to place any world happening in a larger context, which seemed to give the event additional meaning, but his thinking was schematic, lacking factual detail and depth.” Leaving Wohlforth’s group, LaRouche briefly joined the rival [[Spartacist League]] before announcing his intention to build a new “Fifth International.” ref name=Wohlforth>{{harvnb|Wohlforth}}, undated. /ref

Other decisions:  partially, the line about his “brilliance” is clearly biased but his status as convicted felon is not defining enough to merit the first line of his bio.

STORY NUMBER FIVE
Press TV headlines?
US moves in Asia to bring about ‘nuclear holocaust,’ activist says
 Themo-nuclear holocaust. Sounds pretty dramatic. You know what else sounds dramatic? Is all the talk of removing Obama from office since like, Day 1 in his office… You people are clowns at ABSOLUTE best…

STORY NUMBER SIX.
Talk about Under the Radar!
Kansas Cattlemen’s Association to host convention in Dodge City
9 a.m.—”US Economy, New World Development Paradigm…Or Bust,” a presentation with Bob Baker of the Executive Intelligence Review, reveals the dependence of derivatives effect on U.S. economic viability.
Looky here, looky there.

STORY NUMBER SEVEN
At the 3 minute mark, Martin O’Malley — who is on the bubble for the next Demcoratic Debate now — gets some rare joking coverage by Stephen Colbert.
A citation polls from the story about Lyndon Larouche’s endorsement of Martin O’Malley — see 3 minute mark.
What does this mean?  Did the producers of the Stephen Colbert story merely look up Martin O’Malley on google and see that story?  Were they considering doing a comedy news commentary about this story, but decided it wasn’t relevant enough?  Was this just an additional gag for those paying attention?
Formulation from fightapathy at factnet:  Larouche Was Right.  But now O’Malley Is Right.  Larouchies to dump Larouche and back O’Malley now.

STORY NUMBER EIGHT.  Tarpley excited by Obama?
Webster Tarpley twitter feed…   #Obama #WhiteHouse embraces #TaxWallStreetParty strategy for destroying #ISIS #Daesh by shutting 98km (60 miles) gap
#TaxWallStreetParty makes history-#Obama #WhiteHouse embraces our plan to destroy #ISIS by closing 98km corridor on #Syria–#Turkish border!

STORY NUMBER NINE
Yesterday Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley were forced to bow out as candidates for the Presidency, after the trio were found involved in sexual relations together (which the majority of Americans voted was totally gross). This dramatic turn of events rocked the Democrats, as they struggled to think of a quality candidate to replace them.
It was announced this morning that the 93 year old serial Democratic contender, Lyndon LaRouche, would accept his Party’s nomination for president of the United States.
Mr LaRouche has informed the XYZ that he plans to tackle the “Venetian-Dutch-British system” head on by nationalising the banks, oil, water, gas and raw materials. He has stated he will build particle beam weapons and lasers to destroy narco-crops and banking institutions laundering its monetary proceeds.
He further stated he’ll use these particle beam weapons to assassinate leading “oligarchy” figures like Queen Elizabeth and Henry Kissinger (who apparently are seeking to spread AIDS and the bubonic plague).
Frankly I can’t wait to see Mr. LaRouche go head to head with Donald Trump in a debate.

STORY NUMBER TEN.  Clinton surrogates versus Sanders surrogates with Larouchies shouting from the audience.  (Do they count as O’Malley surrogates?)

But there were some highly charged moments, especially when a young white activist apparently involved with the notorious Lyndon LaRouche movement started shouting questions to the surrogates on stage, such as: “What are you going to do to stop the drones from killing people and the World War III instigator and mass-murdering dictator Obama?”
That one seemed to surprise and fluster Eldridge a bit. She turned to the panel and asked: “Do you want to answer the question — quickly?”
Tony Hoffmann, from the Village Independent Democrats club who had welcomed the audience from the outset with fellow V.I.D.’er Marti Speranza, could be heard saying that the activist’s question “doesn’t deserve an answer.”
Nevertheless, Wright gave it a try.
“Let’s not forget that George Bush got us into this war. Let me finish, thank you very much,” he added sardonically as other angry voices intruded. “One of the first things I learned in school was that when we get into wars, the economy is supposed to get better. Well, George Bush got us into two wars and the economy got worse. Whether you disagree with how our president is handling this — that’s your opinion.”
Eldridge ended that discussion after Wright’s comments.
“I think that’s enough. All of the other members on the dais approve of most of the things in the Obama administration,” she said, as several people in the audience clapped.
Then the straw poll began. When it concluded, people began filing out of the auditorium and into the street from an exit door near the stage. Several lingered to talk to the panel, among them the aforementioned activist, who carried a placard showing an image of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The words on it said: “We Need FDR!”

Oakland.  And.  Boston.

OMG – I had not noticed that Obama grew a Hitler moustache. When did he do that? Very ballsy moustache choice!

.

November 8.  And Presidential Elect Donald Trump walks up to the podium and stadium full of the excited cheerful.

“I have an announcement to make.  This was all supposed to be a joke.  I have billions of dollars, and decided what the hell, I’ll spend it on on one giant joke — see how far this one goes.  Frankly I thought I’d peter out somewhere around November of last year.  I mean, did you hear some of the bullshit I was saying then?  It was a challenge to just keep upping the ante, and…

God, I thought the final straw would be my vice presidential pick.  Ammon Bundy?  Really, could I have picked someone more wack-a-doodle from this weird right wing fan base I’ve courted?

Well.  Here I am.  President Elect.  Geez, now what, America?  I’ll get to work… Make America Great Again and all that bullshit.  Go back over effectively my acting performances from my reality tv series… sure, sure… ‘You’re Fired’ — that’s all I have to do to handle Kim Jong-un…”